Weala, Margibi County – The operations of one of Liberia’s leading exporters of rubber, Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) have been paralyzed for days by a strike action being staged by group of angry workers demanding permanent employments.
Report by Alloycious David (Freelance Journalist)
SRC is won and operated by Switzerland based Socfin Group. Socfin Group acquired SRC in 2007 and undertook major investments to optimize the plantation.
Workers of the plantation, mainly rubber tappers have for the past three days abandoned their works in demand of better wages and permanent employments by SRC management.
Tappers from different divisions and gangs said they have worked perpetually under appalling conditions and without the requisite wages as contractors, even though they do bulk of the work at the plantation.
Prior to the commencement of their protest on Monday, November 18, 2018 the tappers wrote series of letters to SRC management and the Ministry of Labor requesting for negotiation to avert their actions.
In one of the letters, the head of the protesting SRC workers alleged that for eight months management has constantly applied 50 percent co-efficient against our tax production.
“As you are aware and according to the contract tappers are to pay for materials like tapping knifes, rice, buckets, rain suits and secondly we are two tappers in a task to complete the task and produce more latex but the 50 percent applied on our production and the other deduction has make us to not benefit during salaries payment and this has discouraged us,” the aggrieved workers said in the letter to management.
In the letter dated April 27, 2018, the workers pleaded with management to provide two bags of rice to tappers that are two in a group that has produced more than 50 percent co-efficient than the tonnage rate per month.
It was not independently establish whether management afforded the tapper audience, but unimpeachable sources confided that the tappers letter of complaint was ignored by SRC management.
In another letter written to the Ministry of Labor on November 5, 2018 through Anthony Moses, Labor Commission of Margibi County, disclosed that over 200 tappers were redundant by SRC Management in March 2016.
They claimed that the company refused to pay them their accrued benefits on ground that they would be reemployed, but elected to hire them contractors aim an attempt to avoid liability.
SRC Administrative and Human Resource Manager, Jallah Mensah corroborated that the tappers’ action has paralyzed normal operations at the plantation.
He further noted that the strike has impacted the company’s operations and noted that there hasn’t been any activity there since Monday, November 20, 2018 “because the guys who supposed to be running the activities are currently not working, but rather protesting.”
Mensah however stated that SRC don’t have any direct connection with the individuals demanding employment, because they have been contractors for a long time.
He explained that the protesting workers were hired by a local firm; JB Enterprise that SRC has a contractual agreement to provide contractual labor as may be needed from time to time.
“That is the situation; whatever they are protecting, we don’t have any direct engagement with them” Mensah told this reporter via phone.
Mr. Mensah disclosed that the Ministry of Labor and JB Enterprise is currently negotiating with the workers to resolve the issues at the plantation.
Financial people at SRC has confided that the company is losing unspecified amount of United States dollar daily since the protest started on Monday, but Mensah said its only authority of the company can confirm the amount of money that is being lost due to the strike action.